Visits as summer wanes

Brother drove up again to go shooting at our favorite, roomy spot. Another old friend, Dave, was also visiting and as a professional photographer gifted us with many pictures of our outing. Notice Joanna showing off her beloved 10/22.

Here Dave fixes the AR-15 to suit him. My brother has it adjusted so well that it's hard to miss the target.

Just point and shoot. The day was in the mid-80's and proved to be quite toasty down in the gravel pit.


The new truck held all our gear quite nicely as J takes a moment in the shade it created. Next time we've decided we'll bring the BBQ and just make a day of it.

The world's most powerful handgun... well not quite.

But J still practices her Clint look.

We had a great time with our visitors, including the trip shooting, and look forward to when next we all meet. In the meantime, harvest carried on back at home. The Centennial Hops were very ready and needed attention. Notice the cat foreman, Crichton overseeing this task as he does most all tasks inside and out.

Another bonus from our kind neighbors as our young Italian plum trees aren't yet producing. These will either be eaten fresh or dehydrated... the jar contains dried exactly what the bucket does fresh.

And speaking of buckets... I'd no sooner set the pick bucket down on the back porch after emptying it, when I next passed by it was already occupied. At first glance, I thought I missed a leaf, but it was a small tree frog who decided it was a nice place to hang out.

Once noticed though s/he headed to points "up".

Not sure if you can tell, but high up at the top of the back porch is a second frog who our bucket frog joined. Did froggy go a-courting??

The back porch now appears to be a favored frog hang out as we either hear or see them there these days. Maybe they like that we replaced the leaky porch roof this summer.

It gets dark earlier and light later now, so we have installed lights on timers in both of our mini coops for the chickens. Today was an egg record with a total of 21 laid!